The Soul of the Han Dynasty in the Late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 408
Affected by the speed of No. [-] Fuchuan, the speed of the entire fleet can only be maintained at a state of more than four knots and less than five knots.

And when the full-drive sprint was added with wheels and paddles, the speed of Huang Han's battleship and Huang Yong's flagship could reach eighty-nine knots. Now there are nine such warships, all of which have a displacement of about [-] tons.

The rest of the old lock ship-style warships without external wheels have a displacement of four to five hundred tons, and the speed of the ship can reach more than six knots when the wind is smooth.

Huang Han, who came to the long-awaited sea hunting ground, of course has to practice in actual combat. The navy has trained how to fight at sea for more than a year. Unfortunately, he basically didn't get the opportunity to display it. Of course, he had to show his fangs when he entered the waters of the Japanese kingdom.

Huang Han communicated with Huang Yong through semaphore, and Huang Yong led a large ship with a displacement of [-] tons with wheels and paddles and nine old lock-type warships with a displacement of [-] to [-] tons to escort the merchant ships to Edo Bay along the agreed route.

He led seven old lock boats with a displacement of more than [-] tons and paddles to speed up along the route to find pirates and strive to rob large ships and goods.

Maritime force overwhelms everything these days. Most merchant ships have several cannons, and even expensive bronze cannons. They are called armed merchant ships.

The fifty merchant ships brought out by Huang Han were completely different. In order to save costs, the ships were not equipped with cannons, which meant that they had no force.

This is because to equip artillery, you must have a gunner and a loader. Huang Han believes that in order to have force, one must be overwhelming, and to be able to fight, one must fight and win.

To equip a merchant ship with five or six cannons requires gunners and training. This kind of unprofessional armed merchant ship is slow and has limited firepower. It is unnecessary to use it for naval battles, and the cost of self-protection is too high.

As a result, merchant ships simply do business without defense, professional transportation, and choose to escape with full sail when encountering the enemy without the escort of a warship.

Huang Han believed that it would be great to entrust the safety of navigation to professional sailors. As the number of new warships launched by the "Red Banner Army" increased month by month, the sea area of ​​activities would gradually expand, and it would not be a problem to maintain the safety of unarmed merchant ships in the system.

Robbing pirates is just a fancy name, Huang Han is going to snatch all the sea ships that can be found, because in this era, maritime merchants and pirates are a nest of snakes and rats.

If you find a ship on the sea that is not as powerful as your own, sea merchants will most likely act as guest pirates. After all, the benefits of a successful robbery are too great. The cost of a sea ship is at least 1 taels of silver, and the cargo loaded is likely to be worthless. More than [-] taels of silver.

The "Red Banner Army" system was built with a simple structure and the most cost-effective old lock ship type due to Huang Han's golden finger. The cost price of a sea-going ship with a displacement of five or six hundred tons is close to 5000 taels of silver.

This is still under the condition that steel forged keels are widely used and giant trees are not required.

It can be seen that a successful robbery will bring in nearly 3 to [-] taels of snowflake silver. Who wouldn't be willing to take such a huge profit?
The seven old lock boats were sailing at full sail, and Huang Han's boat was naturally the flagship. At this time, there was no full drive, and the speed of the boat was between five knots and six knots.

On the mainmast of the ship, the old sailors with binoculars were looking at the horizon. In the command cabin at the bow, the captain Shen Xianyi and the two first mates were also holding binoculars and looking into the distance.

On the deck, the small flag officer and senior officers of the Marine Corps held binoculars to observe the surroundings. They were all eager to find a ship on the sea, and everyone was looking forward to showing off in front of the owner the team-to-board battle that had been practiced for more than a year. .

To fight against the enemy's navy, you must rely on unparalleled firepower to win the naval battle. However, if you start a war entirely for the purpose of robbery, there is no need to compare firepower. You should use as few cannons as possible, and strive to deter enemy ships with artillery fire and capture them as intact as possible.

Therefore, all the Franco cannons on Huang Han's warship are equipped with shotgun sub-guns, and the shotguns loaded in the sub-guns of the 300-pound Fron machine gun are more than [-] small iron balls of about three or four dollars. Composed, a large piece of erosion was blasted out in one shot.

Three or four dollars worth of iron can only do limited damage to a ship, how terrible is it to hit sailors and gunners?
In this era, there should be no warships in Asia that can be regarded as warships. The warships used by the navy should belong to the category of armed merchant ships. They don’t even have special gun decks and gun bays. The few six-pound iron-core copper cannons equipped are eighty-nine out of ten deployed in the open air. On the upper deck.

Huang Han reckoned that as long as his warship was close to firing a round of shotguns, it would basically be able to hit the enemy ship without force.

At this time, under the guard of the Mini Gunners, the Marine Corps launched a side-to-side battle with the bayonet-mounted self-produced blunderbuss gang. The cold-armed swordsmen took the lead in occupying the enemy ship's command cabin and controlling the rudder, and a ship was captured.

This time I went to sea and chose a [-]-member Minnie gunner who is not seasick, two first-level self-born gunners, and a sword-shield brother-in-arms.

On each warship with paddles, there are two small-flag sword shieldmen in charge of side-to-side hand-to-hand combat, three small-flag marines with bayonet-mounted self-produced blunderbuss, and a small-flag Minigunner performing precise strikes .

In order to train the young cadets, all members of the navy and marine corps expanded into a thousand generals were dispatched.The number of sailors and gunners dispatched reached as many as 3000, half of whom were children over the age of 15 entering the probationary period.

On average, there are 300 people on a warship, and the number of people on Huang Han's warship is as high as [-].

This is also due to the fact that a large number of Fran cannons using sub-guns are equipped, because if all Hongyi cannons are used, no less than five people can complete each cannon, and at least two people can use the Fran cannons in a group. able to complete.

Considering that the platoon bombardment during the battle will basically avoid firing on both sides at the same time, and because the number of gunners is not large, only one side of the artillery is used to arrange the gunners.

In the event of a fierce battle between two sides, sailors and marines will act as loaders, and professional gunners will be responsible for aiming and firing.

Seven warships with a speed of [-] knots searched and moved forward at a distance of about two nautical miles. Each ship had at least [-] telescopes to observe the sea surface. There was a high possibility of finding merchant ships on this main channel.

At noon on the third day after leaving the main fleet, the good news came. A group of five merchant ships was found. After Shen Xianyi carefully observed, two of them were the No. [-] Fuchuan and the three Japanese Zhuyin ships. They are all equipped with five or six six-pound cannons, and no larger cannons have been found.

Armed merchant ships in Asia do not have special gun decks, and the artillery is arranged on the upper deck. The sailors on the watchtower can use binoculars to see the artillery and guns of these ships clearly.

The sailors on these five sea ships were relatively mixed. From a distance, they had already spotted the Japanese with flowery heads. There should be many Han Chinese, and many of them looked so dark that they looked like Luzon people.

(End of this chapter)